Where did warm ambient sound in music go?

L

Loquenau

Power User
Seems hardly anyone, none under 30, likes warm ambient sounds. Especially in all the prog/djent stuff with delay spaces, the sound is not warm. It's treble echo. It's soft, but it ain't warm. Full.

Whether I like this (and I don't, never have liked bathroom echo, for example), something's going on culturally and all that focuses on treble content. Lots of older folks will say things like, 'all these kids listening to crappy MP3s....'. I dunno....because lots of younger folks have access to quality gear of all sorts now, and yet.....

Further along this line, take the following example:





The tones here are interesting. Very streamlined, and pretty damn clean.

However, they sound almost electro-carnival-like. Medicine-y green and pink. And they have this strange 'uerrrrr' sound. Further, as typical in these neo-djent-periphery tones, when they play in the low range, the tone gets all scrappy sounding.

Why? The higher the pitch, the greater the content. Except in gain siutations, because of the added harmonics. So a tone in the 'bass' will have it's normal complement of harmonics - plus that extra treble crap. Which is also why it's so apparent: the distance between those harmonics is so great, they stand out from each other. It's almost like two differently ranged instruments are sounding. But here it's worse because the bass is heavily removed, so when they play low, and especially when they play chords, it sounds musty.
 
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Sounds like Dragon Ball z stuff with a splash of Guthrie Govan :lol . I like how the two players work with each other very cool!
 
Wait...Justin Bieber can play guitar? AND he has a friend? I've gotta go rethink my life now...

I kid. Both of those guys can play. Do I prefer other types of guitar/guitar tones playing myself? Yes. But this is a modern guitar tone and it doesn't bother me for what it is. Just my 2 cents.
 
brown mountain seagull fall left of spatial spacial facial recognition undertow toejam towtruck in outerpsace save face tie my shoe lace.
 
honestly i think its all to do with pickup choice. i watched the video for 5 seconds, and i assume for the rest of it it doesnt switch off of the bridge pickup?
the neck pickup is where warmth comes from. furthermore, the number of frets matter! a neck pickup on a 22 fret guitar is MUCH warmed than the neck p/u on a 24 fret guitar. i believe that this has something to do with loquenau's sentiment that people "under 30" dont go for warm sounds, it is because the guitar industry has strayed towards this shred-machine 24 fret style super strat, and away from the more traditional 22 fret strat/les paul etc. type guitar.

i mentioned this in another thread that loquenau made. the neck pickup of a musicman luke guitar (22 frets, active single coil pickup) - warmth like no other.

in summary, 24 fret guitars are easy to play, but at a great cost in my opinion. those 2 frets are more important to tone than any patch that an axe fx can give you
 
Kids play the darnedest things.

I thought my Peavey Bandit was too cool for school back when I were a lad.
If only we could get an Axe model, I'd bust out "In the nightside eclipse", stick a piece of garden hose in a gatorade bottle, and wag work.....

With age comes maturity .... in most things....;)
 
I actually liked a lot of what they did. The modern guitar tones didn't really bother me. They seemed right for the song. The thing that did bother me was the sound of the drums. :lol
 
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I actually agree with the OP. Kinda' weird sounding tones there. No girth. Kinda' empty and scratchy sounding.
 
audemia said:
honestly i think its all to do with pickup choice. i watched the video for 5 seconds, and i assume for the rest of it it doesnt switch off of the bridge pickup?
the neck pickup is where warmth comes from. furthermore, the number of frets matter! a neck pickup on a 22 fret guitar is MUCH warmed than the neck p/u on a 24 fret guitar. i believe that this has something to do with loquenau's sentiment that people "under 30" dont go for warm sounds, it is because the guitar industry has strayed towards this shred-machine 24 fret style super strat, and away from the more traditional 22 fret strat/les paul etc. type guitar.

i mentioned this in another thread that loquenau made. the neck pickup of a musicman luke guitar (22 frets, active single coil pickup) - warmth like no other.

in summary, 24 fret guitars are easy to play, but at a great cost in my opinion. those 2 frets are more important to tone than any patch that an axe fx can give you
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Are you referring 24 frets because it is associated with a lighter style of guitar body/neck, or is it a mathematical/geometric thing? Pretty interesting idea
 
JJunkie said:
Are you referring 24 frets because it is associated with a lighter style of guitar body/neck, or is it a mathematical/geometric thing? Pretty interesting idea
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to accommodate the 24 frets, the neck pickup has to be pushed back about an inch or inch and a half, this makes it more trebbly
 
audemia said:
to accommodate the 24 frets, the neck pickup has to be pushed back about an inch or inch and a half, this makes it more trebbly
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There is another theory for neck pickup placement. Apparently when the pickup is fitted on the natural spot for a 22 fret neck guitar, it falls in the same spot where the 24th fret would be placed. Apparently this causes the pickup to miss a lot of the harmonic content of the note. You will notice this with single coils on a strat if you hit the 5th fret harmonic on an open string: you will be able to hear the full harmonic content in the first four positions but will hear less of it on the 5th position (neck).
If the pickup is fitted for a 24 fret neck it falls off of this spot and this artifact is less audible.
 
@Rook - re: synthesthesia: it's like what I've heard is the experience of being on PCP. And not just sound. In the late 90s, I was coming home to my apartment, and there was this chick in front of me who had on some kind of perfume....ewwwww, I hate perfume....and it was like seeing the emanations of Peppy Le Pew - except in neon blue. Another time, in the same complex, I encountered this cat in a window of someone else's place, and there was this similar kind of aura around it: sensual, thick, and hot pink. The cat very sensuously pawed at the window, and I pawed back for a while.


Definitely those kids are great players, although I wonder at their gate settings. You can tell they're really tight.

Their tones have some nice elements, they just crap out down low.


Interesting comments about fret number.


I happened across this. The clean tone space is pretty decent. Depth and texture - the tone is like glass bells with no attack.

 
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I personally like the way a 24 fret guitar plays... as to the neck pup sounding trebly, I use the tone knob to compensate and it works just fine.
 
Rook said:
Agreed. Worst kick ever.
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Confirmed! Worst kick ever.

What find the most annoying/irritating about these kinda tones is the super extreme gating they use. It sounds soooo unnatural and deliberate. I can't stand it, it's just awful.
 
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